Minion Masters 2.0 changes

Masters!

Minion Masters 2.0 is drawing near, and we would like to take a moment to talk about some of the changes that are coming this winter.

For those of you who just joined, have a look at our initial 2.0 announcement to learn more about it: [link]

TL;DR

A lot of stuff is changing. Here is the overview:

• Prologue: When 2.0 releases, we will enter a period we call the Prologue, which will be focused on collecting feedback and improving the game with your help!
• Ruby Changes: Rubies as rewards will be reduced in general. However, prices of Season Pass, legendary cards etc. will be cheaper.
• Profile Level rewards: Profile rewards changed and Improved. Rewards will be claimable even though you reached the level in 1.0.
• Card Promotion & Glory Changes: Rewards for promoting cards have been added, and Glory system revamped. You will no longer require multiple copies to wild card.
• Shop Changes: General discounts and more premium items for sale as Gold purchases.
• Season Pass: System is simplified, Battle Chest is removed. Free Season Pass contains an extra legendary card.
• Ranked rewards: Rewards of ranked modes consolidated, extra rewards for 2x and 3x Contender.
• Adventures: Some old Adventures deprecated, reimbursements for owners!
• Daily Chests + Achievements: More quests and Achievements added. Daily Quests give Season Pass XP.
• Draft Mode: A new game rule has been added, rewards improved.
• New Mode: Practice Mode replaces Challenges as an easy way to test your deck.
• Game Modes removed and deck resets: House Event and Conquest removed. Decks will be reset. Everyone will gain 6 extra deck slots.
• The mobile version won’t be released on January 16th as initially announced. We are still targeting Q1 for the release, but we can’t give an exact date yet.

---

Minion Masters 2.0 Prologue

We’ll start Minion Masters 2.0 with what we call a “Prologue” phase. Our goal is the same as always: to collaborate with you to deliver the best version possible, and getting your feedback during this period will allow us to deliver an amazing final version!

• During the prologue phase, some stuff might break, and things might quickly change based on your feedback. We’ll keep a close eye on your feedback, so don’t hesitate to use the dedicated channels (Discord, email, feedback form) to let us know if you don’t like something, if something is broken, or even if you like a new change!
• We will focus on adding a lot of quality-of-life improvements, UI improvements as well as bug fixes to the new version of the game.
• The Prologue will end in the spring with a major update introducing a new big feature to the game (it’s a doozy!).

Rewards Changes Overview

We are replacing Ruby rewards in many places with other types of rewards. Meaning Level rewards, ranking, achievement rewards and Season Pass. Rubies given for free in the Shop will be increased however.

Why are we reducing Rubies as a reward?

Making rubies less grindable means we have greater control over the monetized aspects of the game. This change allows us to be more generous with all the other rewards (see the list below). It will also allow us to keep supporting the game, make new quality content, and grow it to become bigger and better than ever. We love Minion Masters, and we want to grow this great community and make it better than ever for years to come.

Minion Masters will remain fair-to-play; new cards and masters will remain free each season. This will not change. The Season Pass will continue to be a way to get content faster and unlock customization cheaper, nothing more.

To compensate, the following changes are happening.

• Rubies will still appear in the Shop as a free claim.
• Rewards increased in general from Season Passes, Ranked Rewards and Profile Rewards! See more information below.
• You now get rewards by promoting cards. (see more information below).
• Prices of certain items are reduced:
  • Season Pass, reduced from 1250 to 1050 Rubies
  • Adventures, reduced from 750 to 600 Rubies
  • Legendary Cards reduced from 1250 to 1050 Rubies
  • Legendary Skins reduced from 1950 to 1500 Rubies
  • Supreme Skins reduced from 1150 to 1000 Rubies
  • Legendary Arenas reduced from 2350 to 2000 Rubies
  • Legendary Emotes from 750 to 400 Rubies

We also have a lot of other exciting changes. Let’s go through them together.

Profile Level Rewards

• The profile level reward table has been updated. It now has better prizes, with several legendary cards and legendary skins.
• Two Masters are now in level rewards: Volco and Milloween.
• Rubies will no longer appear in the Profile Rewards
• You will be eligible to claim these new rewards even if you have already reached the level before 2.0 launch.

Card Promotion & Glory Changes

• Upgrading your cards now yields rewards (in addition to granting extra Glory and an upgraded card frame). Prizes include Power Tokens, Cards and Gold!
• You will be eligible to claim these new rewards even if you have already upgraded your cards before 2.0 launch.
• Multiple copies of a card will no longer be required for Wild carding a card. Owning a single copy of a card will allow you to play multiple copies of it (where allowed).
• The Glory system has been reworked. A card now gives 1 Glory that counts towards your Season Pass progress when winning a match. Through upgrading to Gold tier, a card can contribute to a maximum of 5 Glory.

Shop

• Prices on certain items have been adjusted - Legendary cards and skins are now cheaper across the board. See above.
• Featured Offers are generally cheaper.
• Increased the amount of Daily Offers to 12 per day.
• Daily Offers now only cost Gold.
• All items previously only for sale for Rubies now will also appear as Daily Offers, to be purchasable for Gold. (Including Legendary Skins and Arenas!).
• Free Rubies will continue to appear as a claim.

Season Pass

• The price of the Season Pass has been decreased from 1250 to 1050 rubies.
• Season Pass no longer contains Rubies.
• The Battle Chest feature has been removed. (Instead, Daily Quests will yield Battle Pass XP, see below).
• More value has been added to the Season Pass to compensate for House Event and Conquest being discontinued, such as an extra legendary card in the Free reward track.
• Despite these changes, the time it takes to complete the Season Pass is not longer.
• Season Passes will continue to have new cards and Masters for FREE!

Ranked Rewards

• Ranked Rewards are now consolidated into a single reward track. The seasonal Ranked rewards can be progressed through playing any ranked game mode you prefer, but each reward can only be claimed once.
• Rewards are higher to compensate.

• Rewards no longer contain Rubies - (See above.)
• A special reward is added for reaching Contender 2 and 3 times! (you can claim the “3x Contender” reward only if you reach Contender in all 3 game modes).

Adventures

• Adventures make a return in 2.0!
• While no new Adventures are scheduled for launch, we are adding a lot more of these in the future!
• Some old Adventures will be discontinued. The following Adventures will no longer be supported:
  • The Quest for Mountainshaper
  • Saving Jadespark Jungle
  • Nightmares
  • Uprising!
• Owners of the above Adventures will be reimbursed 10.000 Gold for each.

Daily Quests + Achievements

• Daily Quests now grant Season Pass XP in addition to gold.
• Daily Quest gold reward increased across the board (by roughly 40%)
• 11 new Daily Quests have been added!
• 38 new Achievements have been added!

Draft Game Mode Changes

• Draft mode is no longer being restricted by the “Random Card Pool”, (a hidden list of cards that is prohibited in Draft). This list contained cards deemed too hard to use effectively because it required synergy with cards that would be hard to draft. We think this rule made the game mode much less fun, as it takes the fun out of deck building. This list contained 60+ cards.
• Instead, we introduce “Faction Pools”. With this system, after you choose a Master, they only have access to 4 out of 9 factions. Each Master has access to a unique constellation of Factions.
  • We think this system makes drafting your deck much more interesting, as each Master will have access to different synergies. This system will also allow us to balance draft mode better by changing the factions that a Master has access to.
  • We consider this the start of making Draft mode feel unique and interesting. We would like to add more rule changes in the future to keep the Draft meta fresh and exciting.
• Draft Mode now exists on the Leaderboard!
• Draft Rewards have improved. There is now a chance to earn Legendary Cards for 10+ wins.
• NOTE! We consider this an experiment, and as always, we are eager to hear your feedback in the months coming after the release before we decide if this change should be permanent!

Practice Mode

• “Challenges” were removed but replaced with “Practice Mode”.
• Practice can be played both in Solo and Team. It lets you play against a bot of the difficulty of your own choosing. Perfect for testing out new decks!

Some Game Modes Removed and Decks Resetting

Conquest: Conquest has been removed entirely. The relative rewards of this game mode have been added to the Season Pass.

• We didn’t feel Conquest added enough to the player experience. It created pressure to play in a certain way to belong to a guild, which we don’t think makes the game more fun. Also, the “Conquest Cards” feature was very confusing and caused players to think that they would sometimes lose cards. We are looking to add an equivalent in the future!

House Event: House Event has been removed entirely. The relative rewards of this game mode have been added to the Season Pass.

• We also didn’t feel the House Event was exciting enough. It would force you to play a certain Master a number of times, but didn’t succeed at adding any real value to the player experience.

Decks resetting: Unfortunately, due to a change in the game architecture, player decks have been reset, meaning you will have to rebuild your decks.

• As a way to apologize for the inconvenience, we are adding 6 extra deck slots to your account if it was created before 2.0 goes live. ****

New User Names: When logging into 2.0 for the first time, you will be asked to create a new user name with a Betadwarf Player tag**,** but rest assured that no data regarding your profile (other than decks) will be lost.

Thanks for Reading!

We are dedicated to making Minion Masters the best it can possibly be for years to come, and we think Minion Masters 2.0 is an exciting step to make sure that happens! Thanks again for all your support over the years, and we hope to see you in-game once the new version hits Steam and Xbox this winter!

The Minion Masters prologue will start on Steam and Xbox on December 12th. This is also when a new Master Tronveir the Runeshaper will join the roster! (Free in the Season Pass).

See you in the Arenas!

♥ from the Minion Masters team

1.51 Mid-Season balance patch

 

BUFFS

Arcane Barrage

• Radius 10 > 8

Blood Pact

• Damage 85% > 75%

Demon Warrior

• HP 300 > 325

Denver, the Last King

• HP 900 > 1000

Ghast

• AS 3 > 2.6

• Ress CD 2.6 > 2.4

Ghost Turret

• HP 300 > 350

Grasping Thorns

• Max Skeleton Count 3 > 4

Jez'Ra, the Voidmother

• Damage 130 > 150

Magnetic Bombs

• Mana 4 > 3

• Damage 100 > 80

Nyrvir The Fallen

• Mana 10 > 9

Slitherbound

• Slitherbound AS 1.8 > 1.6

Slithering Summons

• Sacrifice cost 3 > 2

NERFS

Apep

• AS 2.2 > 2.4

Bladestar

• Damage 130 > 110

• Duration 5 > 6

Blood Imps

• AS 1 > 1.2

Caged Prowler

• Prowler emerges after 20 > 22 secs

Cleaver

• HP 600 > 550

Elite Swarmer

• AS 1.2 > 1.1

• Damage 25 > 20

Fergus

• Max Card Count 3 -> 1

Highland Huntress

• Range 8 > 6

Prime Sergeant Raddick

• HP 600 > 550

Rapid Response Reserves

• Mana 2 > 3

• Plasma Marine count 5 > 6

Rimargaal

• Remove from Future pool

Ruby

• HP 850 > 800

Scott the Sensitive Savage

• Damage 60 > 55

Volco

• Ember Cooldown 17 > 20

1.51

Hail to the King

• Denver, The Last King

• Woggosaur Pup

Balance Changes

BUFFS

• Armored Escort

• Shield count 2 > 3

• The new design was a little too cautious, but we aren't ready to give up on this version till we have seen it at a more viable power level. It might even need more help than this, but small steps is still the safer approach.

• Frostberry Bearer

• Instead, cast Glenn's Brew

• Speed 6 > 4

• Haste on a half-dead already targeted minion seems to have been underwhelming, even with the healing. Glenn's Brew should be the more interesting version. Slowing the move speed should allow the bear to be behind others more often so as to actually get to use its charges.

• Future Past

• Mana 4 > 3

• The mana increase on the future cards were a safety measure when we changed them to be more stable. That safety seems to not have been necessary.

• Future Present

• Mana 9 > 8

• Glenn's Brew

• Healing 150 > 175

• King Puff

• Perk 2 CD 22 > 20

• Pick-up and effect range doubled

• More usability hopefully without increasing the power so much that he becomes oppressive in high skill 1v1.

• Skeleton Crew

• Count 2 > 3

• Zealots of the Burning Fist

• Damage 70 > 80

REBALANCE

• Caber Tosser

• Revelry: Gain Rage and give enemies Slow

• Caber Tosser getting a new log to throw with revelry is simply too strong. Being able to use Mountain Gale or a minion spawn as something comparable to a Fireball on top of its regular effect is too strong and too easy. This is a first step in trying to get to a better place with him.

• Harmful Souls

• Damage 70 > 80

• No longer adds towards accursed ascension.

• Simplifying it by removing a mechanic that does very little for the playability of the card.

• Haunting Hugger

• HP 50 > 75

• No longer adds towards accursed ascension.

• Simplifying it by removing a mechanic that does very little for the playability of the card.

• Mountainshaper

• Max Ground Rupture count 5 > 10

• Damage 125 > 65

• Charge duration 7 > 4

• Reduce width 

• We've been wanting to do something like this for a while. It's a high mana cost legendary spell, so it needs to be powerful and impactful, but covering both lanes in what is often a full clear is just over the top.

• Nyrvir's Breath

• Damage 130 > 150

• Deals no extra damage on Accursed Ascension.

• Accursed Ascension Skeleton count 8 > 10

• Having a card like this go from barely worth playing before activation to one of the strongest in the game after seems like a bad idea in hindsight.

• R3-KT

• Perk 1: Add a one-use Shadow Dance to deck every 20 secs

• Perk 2: Reduce Perk 1 cooldown by 5 secs

• Perk 3: Whenever you play Shadow Dance, add a one-use One-Punch Blast to your hand (cannot be stacked)

• Perk 3: One-Punch Blast is discarded when R3-KT dies in the field.

• Perk 3: One-Punch Blast Deals 50% damage to Masters

• Remove the 4+ Mana bonus on basic attack

• Attack Cooldown 1 > 0.75

• We wanted to make his perk 3 more impactful without it becoming a cheesy gimmick. This rework removes his ability to spam shadow dance and doesn't give him the option to spam perk 3, while it hopefully makes the whole master more dynamic and makes perk 3 feel like a relevant aspect of the play experience.

• Shield-captain Avea

• Rework: Whenever Avea shields another Minion, gain Legion (1)

• Shield of Light CD 12 > 10

• Health 450 > 500

• The quest mechanic was always problematic. This is an attempt at finding a new identity for her.

NERFS

• Highland Huntress

• Attack Cooldown 1.2 > 1.5

• Damage 40 > 45

• Morellia

• Perk 1 - Skeletons - count 4 > 3

• Perk 2 - Skeletons - count 8 > 6

• Rapid Response Reserves

• Plasma Marines summoned 6 > 5

• RRR has a very high play rate but is really not that impressive when looking at its win rate. This might seem like an underwhelming nerf, but it’s hitting what is arguably the strongest play in its cycle.

• Rimargaal's Breath

• Damage 180 > 150

• This is a direct revert of a buff it got a few patches ago. Essentially an admission that that buff was not warranted.

• Settsu

• Increased summoning sickness

• Volco

• Perk 1 CD 15 > 17

FIXES

• Fixed multiple Future cards sharing the same cycle.

• Fixed Skeleton Horde missing preview

• Fixed Dragon Ball incorrectly doing full damage to masters.

• Fixed Outlander Piloted costing 1 tech.

• Fixed Sapphire Pebble being able to jump into the middle gap.

• Fixed Grasping Thorns summoning skeletons for the wrong team.